


undercover marriage

by brucewaynery



Series: iron man bingo fills [1]
Category: Marvel
Genre: Alternate Universe - Detectives, Fake Marriage, Fluff, Getting Together, Insecure Tony Stark, Inspired by Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV), M/M, Teeny tiny bit of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-24 07:41:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19719214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brucewaynery/pseuds/brucewaynery
Summary: "What about you and Steve?" Clint asks, with a shit-eating grin on his face. Tonysoregrets that night drinking with him."Absolutely not.""Eh, we need people who actually act like an old, married couple, not... whatever those two have," Natasha says, eyes narrowing on Rhodey and Tony.-Or, the detective au where Rhodey and Tony pose as a married couple... and we all know where those lead. (To Tony realising something he was supposed to know a long time ago.)





	undercover marriage

**Author's Note:**

> for my 'undercover marriage' square on iron man bingo

“We have an update on the Fisk drug ring case--” Captain Fury starts, the second they all sit down in the meeting room.

“What, no ‘hello’, no ‘good morning, detectives, how was your weekend’? Not even a polite nod, Nicky, did you forget all that Mother Fury taught you about politeness?” Tony interrupts, fiddling with what looks to be a pen, but with him, they never really know. Rhodey passes him a cup of coffee, like clockwork, and he takes a pointed sip.

Fury gives him one of his trademarked, long-suffering sighs, “Mother Fury’s politeness,” he all but growls, “did not extend to loud-mouth detectives, Stark, and if you’re done insulting my bloodline, can we please get back to our jobs?”

He doesn’t wait for Tony to give him any go-ahead and calls Natasha up. 

She flicks through a powerpoint, “We got word that he might be running a good majority of his operation through this, exclusively gay couple’s hotel/spa type thing uptown, ‘Vanessa’s’,” she flicks through a couple more pictures and lets everyone read through the briefs a beat-cop hands out, “we need two of you to pose as a couple, find out what they’re doing, get what we need to finally arrest him. Any volunteers?”

Tony’s half-tempted to put up his hand, and Steve’s with it, but he doesn’t hate himself that much. He knows that if he does, Steve will say yes, probably put some optimistic spin on it, if he knows anything about him, and play the perfect role, and get what they need, because while he can’t lie for shit, he’s fantastic undercover, and on top of all that Tony knows that he’ll have a great time.

In all the time they’ve known each other, ever since Steve transferred to the 616, they’ve been out to places together, the cinema, baseball games where Tony has no idea what’s going on, or who he’s meant to be cheering or booing, but Steve always looks like he’s having fun, Tony, in some type of retaliation, drags him to tech cons, but Steve seems to have a good time at those too, and seems genuinely interested in what Tony’s interested in. 

They have coffee ‘dates’ every Friday, over at Timely, and go to the Italian diner, every time one of them closes a case, and if they added three more letters on to their current label of ‘friends’ then they all would be classed as dates, or at least, they are anyway, according to Rhodey, even though he and Steve aren’t dating, and probably never will. 

He’s made his peace with admiring (Rhodey calls it pining) from afar, even though, according to the beat-cops, he doesn’t keep it subtle. He knows that the squad would know, or figure out, probably before he did. Because you can’t work with people, who’ve become family, for over a decade and keep any type of feelings hidden (Nat can tell the exact amount of caffeine he’s had at any given time).

Which is why he can’t do it. He’s not feeling masochistic enough this week to get a taste of what it would be like, to know exactly what he was missing out on. Because now, it’s all a fantasy, whatever he may or may not think Steve’s like in his head, as a boyfriend, may be well off the mark, but if they went through with this, he’d know exactly what it’s like. And he can’t give himself that, only for it to be taken away. Or worse, have Steve find out his feelings and lose him as a friend. 

Tony’s well resigned to sitting in a stakeout van with Clint and Rhodey, while Steve and Sam infiltrate the hotel, and pretending that it doesn’t feel like a thousand tiny spikes in the heart he likes to pretend doesn’t exist, whenever he hears them flirting and acting like the perfect, head-over-heals-for-each-other couple. 

Maybe if it turns out that he is, in fact, feeling more masochistic than he thought, then he’ll hack into the security cams and _watch_ them be the perfect, head-over-heals-for-each-other couple. 

He’s almost comfortable to be bitter and jealous, then made fun of, when Clint blows his plans to hell.

“I volunteer,” Clint says dramatically, from the back of the room, where he was shoving Bucky for no apparent reason, “Steve and Tony--”

“Absolutely not,” Tony says, the same time Nat says “Never.” 

Tony shrugs off Rhodey’s exasperated look with a quick glance that says ‘we’ll talk later’, and misses the look of hurt that crosses over Steve’s face, and the comforting hand Sam curls around his unfairly big bicep, in favor of listening to Natasha and Clint argue.

“They’re basically dating anyway--”

“No, no no no, those two, playing husband and husband undercover? No. No-one would believe them anyway, if anything they act like new boyfriends, it’ll be easy to blow. And we can’t risk that, you know we can’t. It has to be someone else, someone…” she trails off, eyes darting around the room, landing on every person on the squad, before narrowing down on Rhodey and Tony.

“Nat.”

“Rhodey.”

“Romanoff.”

“James.”

“Yes, darling?” Bucky pipes up, sitting up straight and attempting to shove Clint off him, to no avail.

Nat throws a pen at him, “Not you, мудак, Rhodes, c’mon, you and Tony are basically old and married, I’ve been chasing Fisk for months, and you owe me for last week, with--”

“OK, ok, ok,” Rhodey concedes, lest Natasha tells everyone about him and Carol, “we’ll do it.”

“Hey hey hey, what about me, what if I don’t want to?” Tony asks, not even to oppose, just to wind her up.

“Tones, you’ll do it,” Rhodey says, fixing him with a look that very clearly communicated, ‘We all know you’re just being a little shit.’

“Honeybear, I love you, but not as a husband,” Tony grins up at him, “and anyway, it’ll be practically incestuous.”

“Then have fun in Alabama,” Fury growls, “Stark, Rhodes, say I do and be done with it.”

* * *

“What I’d give to be in the stakeout van,” Tony grumbles, straightening his robe to hide the wires and running his hands through his hair. They made it to the spa without a hitch, with many, many compliments on ‘how lucky there are to be together all these years’, upon mentioning that they’re here for their sixteenth anniversary. There’s some part of Tony that hates how believable it is, even though they’re saying that they got married young. There’s another part of him that hates how if he and Steve had done it, they could maybe get away with ten years.

“You hate the stakeout van,” Rhodey says, rolling his eyes and fixing his own robe.

“It’s growing on me,” Tony says, mildly, truthfully, he despises that van, he’s positive that it never gets cleaned out, it’s small and dark and almost everything in it is broken (he’s made attempts to fix something, anything, but every time he comes back, something else is broken), but it’s the only place where he can shamelessly sit in Steve’s lap, pulling his ‘growing up rich’ card as to why he can’t sit on the seats - Steve knows it’s utter bullshit anyway.

“Yeah yeah, it’s the _van_ that’s growing on you.”

Tony, wisely, doesn’t say anything and just holds his hand out, palm up, for Rhodey to take, “Ready, husband?” 

-

They’ve deliberately hit the place when it’s the least busy, a Tuesday afternoon, just before last-entry time, there’s pretty much exclusively older couples here, with maybe one or two younger ones, so the stand out a little, but not that much.

They think they know which backroom it is, based on the patterns of some of the workers, and some of the patrons, but it takes a while for the coast to clear, meaning Rhodey has the time to interrogate him, especially since they had to take the mics off for the massage.

“So.”

“Sourpatch, no,” Tony groans dramatically, staring at the linoleum, the whole spa thing is comfortable, he should do it more often, maybe bring Steve along, he works too much anyway. He knew that Rhodey was going to ask him about Steve the second the masseuse left, and even though he knows Rhodey better than himself, he’d had some false hope that maybe he wouldn’t.

Feelings aren’t his strongest forte, and he refuses to let everything out in Fisk’s wife’s gay spa.

“Tones,” Rhodey says softly, gently.

Tony caves.

“He’s, he’s, the most stubborn, ridiculous man I’ve ever met, first time I shook his hand, he called me a rich brat, I called him useless, an hour later he saved my life, I saved his, turns out sometimes, when he’s not being stupidly sweet, he’s an asshole, godawful at cards, and cheats like a Hollywood star at Mario Kart and Monopoly, he refuses to put himself last, never stops working, refuses to admit when he’s hurt, or wrong,” he takes a deep breath, overcome with pure affection for one of the best people he knows. 

If he was Steve’s boyfriend, he would try harder than he ever had for any of his other relationships, because Steve deserved at least that, because he can’t bear to let him down, because he can’t lose him, not to his own idiocy. Tony would rather never know what he’s like as a boyfriend, never know what he would be like to date and cherish and love than know and experience it then lose him.

Steve’s kind and funny, and hot, and so, so much better than him in every way, he wants to call him stupid things like ‘baby’ and ‘sweetheart’, he wants to take him out on dates and hold hands and kiss him on his absurdly pink lips, and wake up next to him every morning and tell him--

It dawns on him, slowly, not in a eureka moment, not suddenly, loud and bright, but like something he’s meant to have known his whole life, or, at least as long as he’s known Steve.

“Sugarbear, I think I love him,” he says quietly.

“About time,” Rhodey says, warmly. 

“Rhodey, Rhodey, what do I do, this, this isn’t some tiny crush, because he does good-people stuff and looks nice and wears those dumb tight shirts, this, this--”

Tony sounds like he’s about to start hyperventilating, so Rhodey places a hand on his back, ignoring the awkward stretch, “Breathe, Tones, why don’t you tell him--”

“No.” 

That’s never happening, Tony can’t even fathom it, what if Steve never talks to him again, what if he thinks it’s creepy and weird - he knows, logically, that Steve wouldn’t, because that’s just not who he is, but what if he does. And how would he even say it, ‘Oh hey, by the way, I’m in love with you, have been for a while now, how wild is that?’

“Tony, what if he feels the same?”

“What if he stops talking to me?”

“Even if he doesn’t like you like that, you know he’s not gonna be mean about it, what if he really loves you, like you love him,” Rhodey says, logically, trying to telepathically send some of that logic to Tony.

It doesn’t work.

“Even if he does feel the same, which, I want you to know, is probably less likely than George Lucas making Luke Skywalker a villain, and we end up dating, you know that I’ll fuck it up in a week,” Tony doesn’t have the best run with relationships and commitment and all, but for Steve, he would try so fucking hard. But what if that’s not enough.

“Tones, what if you let yourself be happy for once?”

Tony thinks he’s about to say something else, but out of the corner of his eye, he can finally see that there’s no one by the doors.

“Rhodes, 5 o’clock, it’s clear, we have to go.” His mind snaps back into ‘Detective’ mode, drug lords first, Steve later.

“Let’s go, Detective.”

They get dressed - they’d asked for their clothes to be with them at all times and, thankfully, it had seemed like their least eccentric request - and quietly urge and escort some of the patrons out - Fisk and his men were known for being unnecessarily violent, and well equipped - there weren’t that many left, only a few older couples. They plug in and activate the comms.

“Detectives Rhodes and Stark,” Rhodey whispers into the comm, “we think we know where he’s operating, on my mark, infiltrate, third floor, red double doors next to the fuchsia plant,” he rattles off the orders completely seriously, but he refuses to look at Tony as he does, knowing that if he does, he’s going to crack up.

“Tones you ready?”

“Let’s find some gay cocaine!”

They infiltrate, call for back up and everything seems to be going smoothly, the rest of the squad arrive, Steve looks unfairly good, Tony refuses to look him in the eye, but he looks good, henchmen and labrats alike are being put in cuffs, it’s a little violent and very busy but it’s all going good until Tony finds himself held at gunpoint by none other than Fisk.

 _Fuck_ he thinks, as the muzzle presses roughly against his temple, Fisk’s fingers are digging into his bicep and he’s yelling at the other detectives, attempting to use Tony for ransom, _this is how I die._

He’s been in dangerous situations before, shootouts, hostage situations, the like, but this is Wilson Fisk, one of the most dangerous men in New York, he could kill him right now and pay everyone, or blackmail everyone, into calling it an accident. Or denying that he existed in the first place. There aren’t that many people left in the room now.

He can barely hear what he’s saying, all just a rush of syllables, consonants, and vowels. Idly, he wonders if the last thing he ever hears is Fisk bargaining, his life for his drug ring. His eyes flit around the room, before, finally looking Steve in the eye. He’s scared. Tony doesn’t think that he’s ever seen Steve that scared, _terrified._

He’s going to die (his training told him to think positive, but he’s not too sure how far happy thoughts are going to get him when he can already smell the gunpowder) he’s going to die without ever knowing what it would be like to wake up next to Steve Rogers.

Steve raises his gun and Fisk’s words finally filter in, “You shoot me, then your little pal here goes.”

It’s silent. Everyone is stood stock still, breathing shallow, hardly blinking.

Steve looks away from him, towards someone else, tilts his head and blinks, almost imperceptibly, and shoots.

And misses.

But that might have been the point, Tony realises, belatedly, as Fisk gets distracted and Rhodey cuffs him from behind, ‘accidentally’ jabbing him in the ribs. Steve rushes forwards and pulls him away from Fisk and out the room.

“Are you ok?” he asks, dropping his arm from where he’d held him around his waist.

Tony takes a deep breath, calming down his heart, he’s ok, he’s not dead, and Fisk’s in cuffs. But what about next time? What if it’s Steve who’s held hostage? _What if he took a risk with his heart?_

Steve still looking at him with concern, eyes bright, and all Tony can think of, is kissing him.

So he does.

Steve kisses the same way he does everything, putting his all into it, his hands wind around his waist and Tony feels so safe and _loved_ , he just clings on to him, hands sliding into hair that felt softer than it had any right to.

They break apart eventually, because neither of them have super-lungs, but they still stay close. Tony thinks he sees something akin to regret, or doubt, pass over Steve’s face and braces himself for the rejection. God, how could he be so stupid, all the adrenalin and the conversation with Rhodey left him thinking less clearly than usual. There’s a gay joke in there somewhere but Tony doesn't have it in him to make it. Because Steve may never talk to him again. _Good going Stark!_

“Tony, do you really want this, because if it’s just because of adrenalin, or something…” Steve trails off, hold slightly hesitant, posture tenser.

Tony tightens his, feeling Steve relax slightly and whispers, “No, I’ve, I’ve liked you, as more than a friend, for a while now, this whole thing, just the push.” 

Almost all of Steve’s doubt is gone now, “I like you as more than a friend too,” he says, smiling a small, private smile. Something Tony wants to pretend is just for him. He looks so, so happy and relieved and that tiny quirk of his lips says it all really. Tony knows now that if he can make him smile like that every day for as long as they’re together, he knows that he’s done something good.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! please leave a comment/kudo if you enjoyed and check out the other iron man bingo works!!
> 
> tumblr: tonys-stars - rebloggable post of this fic under the tag #ironmanbingo2019 if you're that way inclined
> 
> (also! if anyone wants to suggest a better title, im all ears)


End file.
